Thread by @aaronjakes

This story in @nytimes, beginning with its headline, fails spectacularly to explain what is happening right now to universities all across this country. The conflicts over plans for the fall are warning signs of an epic crisis for higher ed.

nytimes.com/2020/07/03/us/…

Before I explain, a few important caveats. First, @nytimes did recently run an excellent op-ed by my colleague @TenuredRadical that describes well the contours of the disaster that is looming and offers a compelling plan for how to address it.

nytimes.com/2020/06/05/opi…

Second, since I'm proud and grateful that our administration chose to lead in a different direction despite the same risks and constraints, I think it's worth noting that at least a handful of universities, @TheNewSchool among them, have made different choices.

Third, given the years of alarming hype about the glorious promise of MOOCs and online education, it's worth noting that at least implicit in these crazy efforts to force faculty and students back into the classroom is a recognition of how misplaced that fantasy really was.

What's missing altogether from the Times story is any serious account of how debates over whether to return to campus are a consequence of a funding model for higher ed that is collapsing with terrifying speed.

The closest the piece comes to acknowledging that process is by noting: "the bottom line is that face-to-face classes are what students and their families — and even most faculty members — want." Without more context, that comment explains very little.

The real issue here is that most universities in this country are overwhelmingly dependent on year-to-year revenue from tuition to cover their operating expenses. Flagship state schools and famous institutions with huge endowments are somewhat better protected, but only so much.

At root, the political economy of colleges and universities in the United States has been rebuilt in a matter of several decades around an understanding of higher education as a service sold to student consumers rather than a public good.

It's worth bearing in mind that the astronomical costs of college education are directly related to the astronomical costs of other privatized social goods. My students will spend years saddled with debt in part to cover the profits on my employer-based health insurance policy.

The Times article might easily lead an uniformed reader to think that what's happening is simply about a tension between the desires of students to have a familiar and rewarding on-campus experience and the anxieties about the implementation of social distancing.

On a superficial level, that does capture something about the calculations uni administrations are making. They are in fact weighing a set of highly speculative calculations about the behavior of their student "consumers" against a mass of evidence about how the virus spreads.

But the real question driving all of these decisions is how many students will show up in the fall and how far enrollments need to dip before colleges and universities start going belly up in huge numbers.

Faculty are not alone in thinking through the terrifying implications of bringing students back to campus in the fall. Many universities are conducting their own feasibility studies. The costs and logistics of being on campus safely are, in many cases, unmanageable.

The issue here is that many students find the prospect of more online teaching--especially at the rates they were paying at the past--unappealing. So some will pass on an online fall. But universities need to maintain their enrollments in order to cover their operating costs.

So what's really happening--and now that the virus is burning out of control across the country, it's fair to say it's happening everywhere--is that university administrators are weighing serious health risks of which they too are aware against crashing revenues.

In some cases, this has led to cynical--if increasingly transparent--communication strategies. The game here is to make carefully hedged statements about returning to campus in order to attract deposits but to hope that by autumn state officials will mandate a fall online.

In others, it has triggered decisions to knowingly expose faculty, students, and staff to risks of infection because the alternative seems more certain to result in bankruptcy. I've had some agonizing chats recently with friends who face this grotesque scenario at their schools.

Again, there are alternatives. Some schools have decided that the right thing to do is to make the call early to prioritize the health and safety of the university community. One huge advantage of doing so is that faculty have adequate time to prepare much better online classes.

But the point here is that the "problem for colleges in the fall" is not "reluctant professors." The problem is a failing model of privatized funding that is now pitting the lives of actual people against the viability of our country's higher education system. That is the story.

I've written this insanely long thread because it is mind-boggling to have a crisis this serious misreported this badly on the front page of a newspaper staffed by people who surely care about the viability and longevity of colleges and universities all across the US.

Absent the speedy arrival of new therapies and vaccines, the strain on the finances of many schools operating on the current model will grow insurmountable much faster than many people seem to realize.

Imagine a country in which hundreds of our colleges and universities no longer exist. If that prospect terrifies you as much as it does me, stop worrying about "reluctant professors" and start calling your elected officials and demanding plans to backstop higher ed.

And while you're at it, remind them that a robust system of publicly funded healthcare would radically reduce the costs of ensuring that high quality research and teaching are available for everyone.